YouTube Steadfast In Music Video Negotiations With PRS For Music

Patrick Walker, the Head of Video Partnerships at YouTube, outlined the site’s efforts in making progress towards deals with artists and royalty collecting groups at The Great Escape Festival in Brighton. Youtube blocked all premium music videos in the UK, after a failed deal with PRS for Music in March. Walker told the BCC that everything is “great” with the major labels. As for PRS, he said:

“We’re working very hard to come to an arrangement with PRS and we won’t strike a deal unless it makes economic sense. They’ve been a good partner in the negotiations and we’re trying to come up with something that makes sense for everyone involved. Ultimately no-one wins if the videos stay off the service, so we’re trying to come up with a win-win scenario.”

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Pogo Remixes Films Into Music, Offers Free Mp3 Downloads

Australian producer Pogo, aka Fagottron on Youtube, makes music by remixing sounds from movies, and adding his own chillout electronica. He’s creates music videos using spliced scenes from films, and has interpreted old Disney classics like Alice in Wonderland and The Sword In The Stone, as well as other movies like the 1956 film The King & I and Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone.

Pogo has five releases, Weave And Wish, Table Scraps, Wonderland, Broken Beats and On The Yeast; all available for free download in mp3 format on Last.fm. Check out our favorite music videos after the: Continue reading...

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Stones Throw Signs ‘MLC’ in Response to Copyright Claim

Eothen Alapatt, Stones Throw Record’s general manager, tells the story of how the label signed Matthew Larkin Cassell after the artist heard one of his songs sampled by Stones Throw producer Madlib. He writes on the Stones Throw website:

“MLC hit us up after he heard his [song], Heaven, from his superb (and superbly rare) album Pieces on the Madlib production 3.214 from Madvillainy 2: The Madlib Remix. At first Madlib had no idea he was using MLC’s work until he put two and two together and realized that his source material, a Japanese bootleg 12″ labled ‘MLC’ stood for, well, you guessed it.”

Cassell wanted to release his entire catalog digitally and on CD, and Madlib wanted access to it. Rather than the usual copyright litigation, a distribution deal was made. Compare Heaven and 3.214 after the jump: Continue reading...

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Mars Volta Labels Western Media Swine Flu Coverage “Terrorist”

The Mars Volta guitarist Omar Rodríguez-López has spoken out against the negative tone of foreign press against the Mexican outbreak of swine flu. He told NME:

“It’s not the hysteria that the right-wing media are making you think it is. It’s less dangerous than a common cold. This has been a perfect moment for right-wing republican media to say: ‘You see! You see these filthy people? You see what they’re doing? This is very scary!’”

Rodríguez-López thinks that the Mexican economy has been damaged due to the media coverage, and said that “it’s another act of terrorism, it’s another terrorist tactic.” Continue reading...

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Zune Pass Offers Unlimited Music, Until You Stop Subscribing

Penny Arcade is usually a gaming webcomic, but today, music is the focus after Microsoft aired a new commercial for the Zune Pass, which gives you unlimited music for fifteen dollars a month. The catch? If you stop subscribing to the service, all of your music gets erased. Penny Arcade says it best in today’s comic: “It’d be like you murdered all of your favorite artists.”

Granted, since a few major deals in Nov. 2008 (press release), the Zune Pass lets you choose ten songs to keep every month for your collection, but if you stop paying, the “obliteration” of the remainder holds true. Penny Arcade writer Jerry Holkins owns a Zune, and said that the new marketing campaign is “dumb”, while the rest of the internet is more intent on bashing the new face of Microsoft’s Zune, Wes Moss, and his lack of musical credentials. Watch the infamous advertisement after the jump: Continue reading...

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New Warp Records Site: Warp.net

Warp Records has launched a new web site Warp.net, where you can stream songs of signed artists for free from a playlist, and have quick access to the latest Warp news, events and releases.

You can embed the Official Warp Playlist by copying the usual bit of html code. When Warp adds and changes songs on the Playlist, the embedded player will update correspondingly. It gets better; each Warp artist’s page has its own unique embeddable player, which is also updated with new releases. Now you can have your own official Aphex Twin or Grizzly Bear widget. Read more...

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Universal Music Parent Vivendi Reports Earnings Boost

Vivendi, owner of Universal Music Group, posted a 16 percent rise in earnings for the first quarter of the fiscal year. Chief Financial Officer Philippe Capron said that they “can see some impact of the recession on our activities, but most are protected by subscriptions.” Primarily the millions of subscribers to World Of Warcraft, the online multiplayer game from Vivendi-owned Activision Blizzard. Continue reading...

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Manic Street Preachers Cover Art Banned In UK Supermarkets

The new Manic Street Preachers album, Journal For Plague Lovers, is being shipped to UK supermarkets without cover artwork, because the portrait by Jenny Saville is considered “inappropriate”. The band is annoyed at the setback, and singer James Dean Bradfield called the situation “utterly bizarre”. He told BBC 6 Music that:

“It is her brushwork. If you’re familiar with her work, there’s a lot of ochres and browns and reds and browns, and perhaps people are looking for us to be more provocative than we are being.”

Is “inappropriate” an unfair description? Let’s take a look at some of Saville’s other paintings: Continue reading...

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Music For Search Engines: SearchMe, Wolfram Alpha

Searchme is the new search engine that lets you share information instantly on Twitter and Facebook. It organizes your search into an animation that bring up each page and present s text associated with the page. You then have the option to share the page, zoom in to read it and click through to the original URL address. Continue reading...

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U.S. Congress Votes Radio Performance Royalty Fees

The Performance Royalties Act and the Webcaster Settlement Act were debated today by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee. The Performance Rights Act, supported by Billy Corgan, would impose a “performance tax” on broadcast radio stations, which traditionally don’t pay artists and labels. In fact, some say that major labels have paid stations in exchange for airplay in the past. The Committee voted 21 to 9 to send the Act to full House for a vote.

The Webcaster Settlement Act would lower royalty rates for Internet radio services. Jonathan Potter, Executive Director of the Digital Media Association said that the Act will make sure “Internet radio royalties are determined using the same fairness-based balancing test that has always been the standard for setting cable and satellite radio royalties.” Read more...

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